Stain of the Berry (30 page)

"I just can't believe it," Kim said, once she'd controlled her crying. "Poor Tanya. I can't believe it." Then she turned to me with a look on her face as if a horrible thought had just come to her. "Was it...was it murder? Is that what you were hired to find out? Did he do it?'

"He? Who's he?"

"The boogeyman! You know who I'm talking about! You brought him up!" She was becoming a little unglued. Richie moved in beside her to lay a comforting arm around her shoulders. The couch was getting a little crowded. "Oh God! It was him, wasn't it? But why? You think it has something to do with the Pink Gophers? First Tanya, now us."

"And Duncan," Richie told her. "And Tanya's girlfriend, Moxie, she's dead too."

I laid my gaze on Richie's face. I was willing to bet that if I hadn't been blindfolded when I first mentioned the Pink Gophers, I would have seen that he knew more about this than he was letting on-to me
and
to Kim. And still was.

"M-M-Moxie...dead...oh...and Duncan...oh God, Richie, Duncan's dead?"

Richie shook his head. "I don't know. He called me after he first heard from this guy." Why does he keep calling me "this guy"? Was it kinda like Mario Thomas'
That Girl?
"And I haven't heard from him since." He gave me another surly look, no doubt compliments of an acting coach.

Kim gave me a once-over, her mouth twisted into an I-just-ate-a-rotten-egg grimace. I couldn't really blame them for being distrustful of me. It didn't look good. If Richie and Duncan had begun to make the connection between the choir and the harassment and, possibly, the deaths of Tanya and Moxie, I could see how they could become paranoid and afraid of their own shadows. A guy snooping around their lives would seem like a viable threat. That's why they both had acted so scared of me. Although that doesn't mean you should try to beat me up when I'm out for an evening with my mother-but whatever.

"I'm not the boogeyman," I told her. That's not a sentence I use every day. "I'm here to help you."

"He
is
a detective," Richie finally said. "I checked him out after I talked to Duncan. He has an office and everything, on Spadina."

They looked at each other for a while, then at me. Kim whispered in a hushed tone, as if afraid of anyone else hearing her, "He's coming after all of us, isn't he?"

Richie stared at me too with little-boy eyes. "Is he?"

"I don't know. I do know that many of the members of your choir have been having weird things happen to them; the level of severity seems to vary. I know that Tanya and her girlfriend, Moxie, are dead. Duncan Sikorsky has disappeared and two women have moved to New Zealand. All the others are still here in Saskatoon and most have reported being harassed to the police."

"By the same guy? Who is he?"

"I don't know. That's what I'm trying to find out. That's why I've been trying to find and talk to the two of you." And you haven't been making it easy, I added to myself.

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She nodded, looking numb faced. "What do you need to know?"

"Obviously, the two of you have also been experiencing harassment. Tell me about it."

"Mine hasn't been as bad as Richie's, but you better believe I've been reporting all of it to the police, every single time. I've been getting weird phone calls and letters slipped into my mail slot."

"Weird how?"

"One time, it was just some guy laughing, maniacal like, you know, like he was crazy or something.

Another time, it was a whispering voice saying, 'The boogeyman is going to get you.' One day someone left a dead bird on my doorstep." She visually quivered at the memory.

"There was the broken window on your car," Richie helped her out.

She nodded. "Yeah, that's right, it was in the winter and my car got filled with snow. Oh and he called my mother.. .I have no idea how he got the number, phone book I guess...and told her I was a sloppy lesbian slut and, well, a lot more than that but I think my mom couldn't bring herself to repeat it word for word. I called the police and they were really nice about it, but other than changing phone numbers and trying to lift some prints from the car, which they were never able to, there was nothing else they could do. It's really been bad. I know some of the stuff seems piddling, but when you put it all together and have it happen day after day after day it can really get to you, you know. But like I said, I didn't have the worst of it. Poor Richie has had all of what I got plus way worse."

"Worse how?" I asked.

"Someone tried to kill him."

I looked at Richie following Kim's unexpected revelation. He wasn't denying it.

"I've been getting calls too," he began his tale. "Mine started off
really
bad, threatening to slice the smile right off my face or cut my dick off. And then came the hoaxes. My power and phone and cable were cancelled. My landlord was told I was giving notice. If he hadn't called to confirm my moving out date, I'd never have known until it was too late. I get these huge food deliveries to my house when I haven't ordered anything. Someone spray-painted my car, with the word 'fag' on one side and 'boo' on the other. And it just keeps getting worse and worse and happening more and more often. Everyday there's something more. Some days...it's almost too much to bear, man."

"He's almost been run over
three
times!" Kim exclaimed. "While he was on his bike."

"Is it always the same driver? Can you identify the vehicle?" I questioned.

"No, always different. I've been knocked over so many times there's barely any paint left on my bike; it used to be red, but it ain't anymore. The first time it was an old half-ton truck that came after me. Then there were two more times with a different car each time. They catch me by surprise. I have to swerve wildly to get out of the way; twice I actually toppled off my bike. Before I can get a good look, they've taken off. I thought it was coincidence the first two times, but I don't anymore."

"And tell him the rest," Kim urged but didn't wait for him to comply. "He was leaving his house to go to work one night and his doorstep was covered with marbles. He could have broken his legs or something horrible. And his house was broken into but nothing was missing. Then, two weeks later, he was taking some cold medicine and thank God his nose wasn't plugged up and he could still smell because the cough medicine bottle was filled with bleach! Imagine if he had downed that!"

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time, I know he's been in the audience at the Shakespeare tent watching me...the audience gets comment cards to fill out after the show is done, and one night someone had filled in each blank with the word

'Boo,' so I know I'm not imagining it. I hear weird noises in the middle of the night, like someone's knocking at my door or scratching at my windows. It's...it's...it's driving me nuts."

I did not doubt it. My own stomach involuntarily contracted as I listened to these ghost stories, ghost stories that were true. I could also appreciate that what Richie and Kim and the others were living through was hard to empathize with; much of it was difficult, if not impossible, to prove with little solid evidence to take to the police. It was unrelenting: the constant presence of evil taking little bites out of their psyches, eroding their lives until slowly but surely they'd all become helpless balls of fear. Whoever this boogeyman was, he knew what he was doing; he was someone who had studied fear and how to instill it in others. To think that such a character was out there, roaming the streets of Saskatoon, was a frightening thing.

"When did this start?" I asked.

"February, I think," Richie told me.

"I didn't really notice anything until late March, April maybe," Kim said.

It fit. Everything that had happened to this group of people happened after December, after that fateful trip to Regina when they were snowed-in in Davidson and had their picture taken.

"So why us?" Kim questioned. "Is it a gay thing? Because we're a gay choir?"

"It could be," I said. "But I think it's more than that."

"What? What could it be?"

I decided to share my latest theory with them. "I think it has to do with a photo that was taken of the Pink Gophers."

Richie pasted a frown on his face. "A photo? What are you talking about?"

"Before Duncan disappeared, he left me a photo. It was a picture of the Pink Gophers, and Moxie Banyon, Tanya's girlfriend. Moxie wasn't a member of the choir, yet before she died, she too was suffering the same kind of harassment as the rest of you."

"So you think this has something to do with who was in the picture?" Kim clarified.

"Yes. Moxie was a target of the boogeyman just like the others, and the harassment began shortly after the picture was taken."

"It makes sense," Kim said, looking at her friend for agreement. "Don't you think, Richie?"

He simply nodded.

She looked back at me. "If that's true then...you think the boogeyman is one of us, don't you?"

"It's a definite possibility."

"But I thought you said every one of us has been a target for this guy. If that's true then..." She stopped for a moment, gave it some thought then reached the obvious conclusion: "Ohhhhhh...you think one of us is lying about being harassed?"

"Possible." It was best for me to stay as quiet as I could here, listen to what these two had to say.

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"Richie, what do you think?" He said nothing and she kept on. "That's crazy though. I know these people. They may not be my best friends or anything, but we've spent a lot of time together, at rehearsals and concerts; we've partied together. None of them are capable of this kind of crap, no way, right Richie?"

"Yeah," he said, breaking a rather long silence. "No way."

"There's another possible suspect," I said, not sure if I yet agreed with them.

"Huh? Who?" Kim asked.

"Who took the picture?"

They stared at me.

"There were eleven members of the choir plus Moxie. That makes twelve. There are twelve people in the picture. Who took the picture?"

Kim glanced at Richie for help then back at me. "I...I can't remember, it must have been...well, gosh...who did take that picture?"

"You have a choir director, right?" I suggested.

"Frank," Kim answered, her brow knitted. "Frank Sadownik."

"Okay. So where was he? Was he the one who took the photo?" I asked.

"I..
.no, it wasn't Frank. He should have been there with us on the bus, but he wasn't. He stayed behind in Regina to visit with relatives. He'd made the trip down with his own car."

"The bus driver." This flat statement came from Richie.

"That's right, that's right!" Kim excitedly agreed. "That guy who drove the bus. He hung with us for a bit that night. He was just as stuck as the rest of us. But again, I can't really believe he'd do any of this shit; he seemed like a decent guy, didn't he, Richie? We barely knew him, I suppose...what was his name? Guy, I think. He's French."

"Yeah," Richie chimed in. "Guy."

"How about anyone else in the hotel that night, someone you might have met or had contact with or an altercation of some sort?"

They both shook their heads, then Richie said, "Well, I guess there was the hotel staff, but why would they hate us so much?"

Kim shook her head as if the idea didn't hold water for her either.

"Did you go out that night?" I suggested. "Leave the hotel for any reason?"

"No. We ate dinner in the hotel diner then hung out in our rooms a bit, had some drinks, then went to bed," Kim said. "We left early the next morning. Not much chance to get into trouble. Maybe you're wrong, maybe all this has nothing to do with that photograph. Maybe it's someone we met at the concert in Regina. Maybe it's someone from one of the other choirs...oh my gosh...do you think? Maybe one of the choir members we were competing against, or one of the choir directors, or maybe a relative of one of the singers got pissed off because we did so well and they decided to get some revenge!"

"But then why Moxie?" Richie asked. "She wasn't in the choir."

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"Even criminals can make a mistake," Kim announced in Nancy Drew fashion. "Maybe he included Moxie just because she was with us that weekend." Her eyes rolled around in her head a bit, and then she came out with, "Or maybe it's a disgruntled former member of our choir? Maybe it has nothing to do with Regina at all! See, Richie, you should have told me about this before. Now that I know this may be tied to the Pink Gophers, I can think up a million suspects."

Oh great.

"We have no disgruntled former choir members," Richie countered. "Anyone who can open their mouth and make a sound can join the Pink Gophers and stay as long as they want. That's why we're not that good."

"Well, yeah, I suppose, but, well, just give me a minute to think this through." She shot him a hurt look.

"I think we're pretty good."

I was getting the feeling that if I allowed Kim Pelluchi much more time to dwell on this, she'd somehow find a connection between this case and the Office of the Prime Minister or Buckingham Palace. I stood up. "You've given me some good ideas, Kim," I told her. "Thank you. If you come up with any other plausible ideas for why this is happening or who the boogeyman might be, please give me a call." I handed each of them one of my business cards and made a move to leave.

"But what now?" Kim asked in a whimpering voice. "What about us? What are we supposed to do?

How do we protect ourselves against this madman?"

It was a valid concern. Unfortunately I had no easy answers for her. "Just keep on doing what you've already been doing," I suggested, giving Richie a meaningful look. "Watch each other's backs."